Wednesday, August 02, 2006

She’s the kind of person who finds mistakes in the dictionary; or, BSC # 44: Dawn and the Big Sleepover.

Why on earth do five 13-year-olds and two 11-year-olds insist on caring for large numbers of young children? Seriously. Are they masochists? Idiots? Or do they really not have any idea that people get licensed to do that for a reason? Cause no sane young miss (or young and modern, depending on how old you are) would take on this job…

The plot: Stoneybrook Elementary has a sister school in New Mexico, and the Zuni children are pen pals with all the students at SES. Then, their school and a bunch of houses burn. So, Dawn, who doesn’t have a pen pal, gets all riled up and wants to help the Zunis. She and the rest of the BSC work with the teachers at SES to set up food, clothing and money drives. As a reward, all the students that participate “get to” spend the night in the school gym. Dawn and the BSC organize the whole shebang, with some help from the teachers. And it’s a huge success, cause when do the BSC girls ever fail?

The plot of this one was pretty boring, and it’s especially full of “aw, aren’t kids sweet/cute/clever/hilarious?” Which does nothing for me…so, I present a few things of note, then I’ll be done with this stinker…

A. The Pike triplets think that Pig Latin is their secret language. Cause every elementary school student in the country doesn’t know it at some point…And who taught them? And I’m pretty sure Mal knows it…

B. Dawn describes meeting the BSC: “Well the BSC made me feel totally welcome. Everyone was open and friendly, which was great, because nothing turns me off more than cliques where everyone dresses and sounds alike. Not that there are never any conflicts in the BSC, but everyone respects everyone else’s personality.” Yup. Unless you try and do something different or hang out with anyone else, or unless you’re not IN THE BSC.

C. Dawn: “Sometimes there are no more leftovers and one wants to cook, which means getting pizza or Chinese food or something.” Mmmm, healthy.

Outfit 1: “For instance, she walked into school today wearing a bright yellow, oversize man’s jacket with rolled-up sleeves; a wide paisley tie right out of the nineteen-sixties; orange stirrup pants; ankle boots; and huge hoop earrings—and you know what? On her, it looked totally cool.” No, it didn’t. I rocked a similar outfit in elementary school/junior high, but with an oversize navy blue and forest green plaid blazer. And it didn’t look cool

Outfit 2: “Claudia greeted us at the door to her room with her hair in a ponytail on top of her head, held up by a huge barrette in the shape of a bone, like Pebbles in The Flintstones. It made her hair bounce when she moved. She was even wearing a Pebbles-type outfit—a pink, off-the-shoulder blouse with huge polka dots and a ragged bottom over black tights. On anyone else it would have looked dumb or babyish, but on Claudia it looked cool.” Again, no it didn’t. Choosing a cartoon infant as your fasion inspiration is NEVER a good idea.

Phone lines are now open for you to vote for the assiest. If you don't call, you can't complain when your assiest outfit doesn't win. Remember, you make the difference.

29 comments:

I didn't even remember this book until just now, so it must have been a real winner. My vote's on outfit B, if only for the Sideshow Bob image that Claudia's "cool" massive bone barrette inevitably brings to mind...

I vote outfit A also. The orange stirrup pants along are making me cringe.

I was actually just thinking about this book the other day! Specifically, the part where some kid brings stuff to box up for the Zunis without their parents' permission, and we are allowed an ever-so-rare glimpse of actual handwriting! Mary Anne's (immensely wordy) permission slip! I bet her dad was a lawyer.

YM succumbed to the curse of Christina Kelly a couple of years ago. All three of her teen mags folded under her tenure or shortly thereafter: Sassy, YM, and ElleGirl. Ok, so she wasn't officially the EIC of Sassy, but apparently jane was EIC in name only, at least toward the end. poor christina!

This is a tough vote. I'd have to say that outfit 2 is probably technically less assy, but the description made me laugh more, so it gets my vote. And a hairclip shaped like a bone is just about the funniest thing in the world.

Outfit 1, paisley tie and stirrup pants! I can't believe I'd forgotten about that marvel of 80's fashion, stirrup pants. It was right up there with those spring sneaker laces/ties and the hyper color t-shirts...not that claudia would ever be seen dead in hypercolour I'm sure, but orange stirrups, oh yeah.

Outfit A, hands down. And why do they always say, "On Claud, it looked cool?" NO IT DIDN'T!

I've just finished reading this book and, as I work in childcare, it really bugged. We do sleepovers occasionally and they are massive amounts of work (and I get paid double time, otherwise there's NO WAY I would participate.) And it really annoyed me how they kept calling parents to pick up the kids who were homesick. First of all, they shouldn't have included the younger children. Second of all, if we called a parent at ten at night, we'd get, "I'm not coming out this late. Tell her to ride it out!" Grrrr

Check out "Kristy and the Baby Parade" -- one instance where they do actually all fail at life. You'd think that'd be really refreshing, but man I was depressed after reading that one!

I remember liking this book because the sleepover sounded like a lot of fun... free pizza, games, all of that. But what bugged me was the prize ceremony... the kids who had donated the most stuff/money got great prizes, and the kids who donated just a little bit got, like, a slinky. And if they were so concerned about the Zunis why didn't someone say "Hey, I bet the Zuni kids lost all their toys in those fires, maybe we should give all these prize toys to them!" No, they missed the whole point. Greedy little jerks.

Is it too late to vote? I vote for outfit A (outfit 1). I can see someone in Hollywood (Lindsay Lohan, maybe) wearing something similar to outfit B.

I just found your site, and I love it. A couple of years ago, when I was 24 (or thereabouts), I decided to buy and reread all the BSC books. I found several at my local Half-Price, but never got around to reading them all.

yeah, you mentioned about the little girl's name being the same as the one hat MA hangs around with when she starts growing up. Well, there's apparentley a mum in California called DeWitt- exactly the same family name as the guy that married Mrs Barrett. We'll probably find out later in the series that the Mr. DeWitt is divorced from the California DeWitt and that the divorced Mr Barrett marries the Mrs. DeWitt in Cali. Or what, can't the author make up names or something?

The second outfit doesn't sound so bad, but the whole Pebbles thing ruins it. The way I picture it the polka dots are black (which could work), but who knows? I agree, it's so irritating when they do't describe the color of the polka dots.

What I especially love is that there's a brief exchange in which one of the girls talks with a supervising teacher about how well the sleepover is going and he remarks that the BSC are so great he hopes they 'stay thirteen forever' so they'll be available to sit for his kids when he has some.That cracked me up.

Isn't Sabrina Bouvier a teenager in Mary Anne's Makeover? So how, how, HOW can she be in LITTLE Miss Stoneybrook. I'm having a hard time believing that either, A) Sabrina aged big-time, since no one in the BSC ever does, and B) there is another Sabrina in Stoneybrook. Someone should of done their homework (cough, ANM, cough.)